Arrow Video: Incredible But True (2022) - Reviewed

Courtesy of Arrow Films

I’m admittedly unaccustomed to the work of quirky far-out French writer-director Quentin Dupieux (Rubber; Deerskin) and I’m totally sure Incredible But True is the best place to start.  However the good folks at Arrow Video put together such a nice limited edition release I was inclined to check out this lean mean little quickie that didn’t easily fit into any genre niches but absolutely is a kindred yet strange bedfellow with the likes of Being John Malkovich or Synecdoche New York with its surreal madcap forays into existential crises.  Not all of Arrow Video’s disciples collecting each and every physical media release will know quite what to do with this oddity.  But for the brave few, this is among Arrow’s most exciting off-the-wall releases since Ivan Tverdovsky’s Zoology, borderline uncategorizable but somehow or another incisive about the struggles its characters face.

 
Middle-aged well-to-do bourgeois French couple Alain (Alain Chabat) and Marie (Léa Drucker) are house shopping and happen upon a quaint but luxurious home in a relaxed suburban neighborhood.  Their real estate agent shows them around but points specifically to a hidden underground tunnel in the basement which if you go down the ladder you will de-age by three days while jumping ahead twelve hours in time.  It’s enough to convince Marie to persuade her hubby Alain into buying the home.  Meanwhile we meet Alain’s cocky insurance broker boss Gérard (Benoît Magimel) who brags about his newly Japanese installed electronic penis while his girlfriend Jeanne (Anaïs Demoustier) intensifies her illicit sexual adances on Alain.  Soon after Alain discovers his wife Marie is obsessed with going down the tunnel to recapture her youth, losing her sanity in the process all the while subtle physiological changes are happening to her body’s makeup. 
 
So fast it takes a lasso to grab hold and catch up with its feverish pace, Incredible But True is like a strange Christmas ornament, fascinatingly dense for being so small.  A movie at once informed by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as a continuation of the director’s own quirky blend of dark comedy and existentialism, the film is a lightly comic romp that at first seems carefully composed but quickly through extended montage spirals into a kind of maniacal thrill.  Shot and edited by the writer-director himself, the panoramic widescreen endeavor has the feel of a suburban comedy about friends but as time will tell Incredible But True is a lot more willfully weird than it leads on with its light science-fiction oriented poster of floating heads connected by the cosmos.

 
Running only seventy-four minutes, despite being dialogue heavy Incredible But True feels almost like a tightly compacted short film that’s frequently funny and offbeat.  Visually the film looks fine if not a little bright and cheery and sonically Joe Santo’s overtly Casio Keyboard sounding electronic score echoes the lofi synth vibes of Motivational Growth or The Greasy Strangler, at times being the only narrative storytelling component amid otherwise silent montages.  Performance wise the ensemble piece is generally good with Léa Drucker and Benoît Magimel chewing up the scenery with their respective characters mutually pushing into realms the human body isn’t meant for.  Mostly though, this is Dupieux’s show with his characteristic editing timed for maximum comic effect and his sense of montage which tells the story in rapid succession but is easy to lose track of given how fast it moves.

 
While not as batshit insane as Rubber with a subtler sense of deadpan comedy leaning towards the wacky, Incredible But True is truly an interesting surreal comedy.  A weird comedy initially of dinner table manners before further firmly planting its tongue in cheek as the lives of these four characters continues to be upended by the strange new development found in their new house, not everyone let alone staunch Arrow collectors will immediately take to it.  But for those keen on having the cinematic rug yanked out from underneath them, plunging them into uncharted comedy movie territory, this is one of the year’s most unique international new releases, a movie that’ll tickle your ribs without you really understanding why it is funny.

--Andrew Kotwicki